Eel gardens, off Kona Airport, Hawaii, USA

• Iain Hosking

Preparatory dive for planned night dive with mantas. Eel gardens first - they stick up from the sandy bottom feeding on plankton. Then coral reef (well, coral on volcanic boulders) with butterflyfish, pennant fish, boxfish, eels, trumpet fish; the usual suspects. Also a divided flatworm. Watched a blue and yellow wrasse operate its cleaning station for quite a while. Finished with half a tank of air because the damaged Aladin was overreading depth and time.

Kona Honu Divers' gear: wetsuit, Cressisub slip-on fins, BC, reg. Own mask, torch and (now dead) Aladin. It didn't like going up Mauna Kea, even in a pressure-proof capsule.

See logbook 10